Sometimes we come to know God where we least expect.

Have you enjoyed your celebration of the Fourth of July weekend?    I commend you for making this Celebration of the Eucharist a spiritual moment in your holiday weekend.  In the celebration of Holy Mass, we are giving thanks to the Lord our God for the blessings we enjoy as a family and as a nation.

What are the other dimensions of our holiday weekend?  Perhaps a round of golf, a family cookout, participation in the town parade, watched some fireworks, reflected in gratitude on the blessings we enjoy as a nation, or been conscious of those who are hungry and perhaps have not experienced the joy of a family outing?  Have these parts of your weekend been God moments as well as this participation in the mystery of the Eucharist?

The Scripture readings today invite us to experience God moments where we least expect.  In the Gospel today, when Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth to preach in the synagogue, the people who knew him best responded with disbelief.   They said:  “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother James and Joses and Judas and Simon?”

By way of parenthesis, it was customary in the time of the evangelist to refer to close relatives as brothers and sisters.

As far as the hometown folks of Nazareth were concerned, Jesus was too local to be important.  As one sage puts it, “an expert is someone who tells you everything you already know but comes from of town and is carrying a brief case.”  Jesus should be home making tables like his dad, instead of preaching in synagogues and working miracles and casting out demons. 

A question for our reflection is whether our preconceived notions of Jesus hinder us from recognizing his presence in the circumstances of our life.  The people of Jesus’ time might expect a word of God from the high priest in Jerusalem temple, but not from a carpenter, not from Nazareth.  What we believe in the mystery of the Incarnation is that God is not an expert from heaven with a briefcase.  Rather God is to be found in our neighbor, our friend, our hometown wisdom.

To go back to my original question, what have been your God moments during this holiday weekend?  In your family outing, has this been a spiritual experience for you?  I can tell you holding my red-headed grandniece Kiera Grace in my arms was an inspiring God moment for me.  She radiates the presence of God in my heart.

May you find the presence of God in those you know and love so deeply?

St. Paul in the second Scripture provides us with another deep insight in experiencing God where we least expect.

Paul writes:  “A thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.  ‘Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’  Paul then said, for the sake of Christ, ‘when I am weak, then I am strong.’”

Certainly anyone who knows much about the life of St. Paul would not view him as a weak man.  This is the man who, through his strong faith, puts his life in jeopardy constantly.  He endured imprisonment and shipwrecks.  Yet, he admits to having weaknesses.

There is something humiliating in admitting one’s weakness.  Pope Francis is a wonderful example to us on the strength of St. Paul.  In his first description of himself as our Pope, Francis humbly says:  “I am a sinner.”  The message of this scripture passage is that recognizing and admitting our shortcomings is essential for us to have the strength Paul demonstrates.

The reason St. Paul finds strength in his limitations is because he is aware that the Lord will provide the power needed in the midst of those deficiencies.  Paul’s life is God-centered.

However, note that Paul’s first prayer was that his thorn in the flesh would be removed so that he might be a better preacher of the Gospel.  So too, it is for us, we pray that we finally overcome the sins we have been confessing all of our lives.  We finally want to get it right and prove that we have the will power to live the kind of life we can be very proud of.

Yet, conversion happened for Paul happened when he switched gears.  Instead of praying that his thorn of the flesh would be removed, he boasted of his weakness.  Paul then said:  “For the sake of Christ, when I am weak, then I am strong.”

How would that work for us?  Can you imagine yourself boasting of your weakness?  And then say:  “When I am weak, I am strong.”

What success have you not achieved that is very important to you?  What would you like to give your children but are unable to?  What illness or handicap or addiction are you dealing with? What loss leaves an emptiness in your life?  What secret is too vulnerable for you to share with others?

These I suggest are your thorns in the flesh?   How can we embrace the virtue of humility and confess our shortcoming and acknowledge our need for God’s grace in our life?  This path, I would suggest, is your journey of conversion.

As a nation as we reflect on the recent decision of our Supreme Court that recognizes the validity of the civil marriage of two people of the same sex.  The Supreme Court has ruled that two persons of the same sex have a constitutional right to marry each other.

It is important to note that the Catholic Church has an abiding concern for the dignity of gay persons.   The Church extends support and love to all families, no matter their circumstances, recognizing that we are all relatives, journeying through life under the careful watch of a loving God.

But It is most important to note that the Supreme Court’s redefinition of civil marriage has no bearing on the Catholic Sacrament of Marriage, in which the marriage of man and woman is a sign of the union of Christ and the Church.  We continue to uphold the traditional concept of marriage that is written in our human hearts and confirmed by the Word of God.

Going back to today’s Scriptures, our God is to be found in our neighbor, our friends, our family, and even in the midst of the struggles and crosses of life.